Overview
This policy overviews the best practices of conducting and streamlining the use of learning management systems with the appropriate protocols and procedures. The policy also ensures full compatibility with all the faculties of the University of Sharjah to provide quality and assurance to all academic services.
Scope
The policy mandates compliance with applicable policies, procedures, and applicable local laws and regulations, this policy addresses important considerations in the use of a Learning
Management System (LMS) at The University of Sharjah. The IT department administers the LMS to ensure optimal performance, manage user accounts, safeguards user privacy and data, and provide technical support for University faculties and students.
Purpose
The policy is to provide enhanced access to education at the University of Sharjah by providing courses in various virtual methods for the students to enhance the course offerings.
Abbreviations and Definitions LMS – Learning Management System
Student – Any person registered with UoS to avail the academic facilities provided.
Policy General:
E-Learning courses E-Learning classes are offered with all work being completed using electronic technologies. Learners access primary content and instruction from an e-learning environment using a variety of tools including, but not limited to, e-mail, text and voice chat, discussion boards, web pages, and multimedia technologies. Specific technologies employed will vary by course and faculty. Depending on the teaching style of the instructor and the course content, instruction can take place synchronously (all participants in the course log in at the same time) or asynchronously (participants log in and participate as their schedule permits), or some combination of the above
Online Courses
The course is offered fully online using some type of Learning Management System (LMS) or web presence to enhance the course.
Distance Learning
Distance learning is carried out remotely by using electronic communication and is not bound by geographical locations. This method provides a more flexible and easily accessible course schedule for those that have a family and/or are working students
Hybrid/Blended courses
Hybrid classes provide an opportunity to take advantage of both online learning and face-to- face interaction utilizing Video Conferencing and/or an LMS. Students must attend physical classes or video conferencing courses and log in to their e-learning environment.
Web-Enhanced Courses
Web-enhanced classes are traditional face-to-face courses that use tools in the E-Learning environment to expand student learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom to boost the productivity and longevity of various programs offered by The University of Sharjah
Faculty – Technology release
1. New technology will only be implemented once tested by end-users and approved by stakeholders and ITC director.
2. New technology will be implemented before the course module being offered.
LMS Account Management
1. All LMS users are eligible to have LMS accounts for as long as the user is signed up for the University services.
2. All registered students will have LMS accounts with Student level privileges to the system. The account will remain valid for the period that the student is registered in the university and will be removed after expiry or graduation or withdrawal. Students must be registered in courses to have access to the LMS courses.
3. All faculty members, full-time and part-time, have LMS accounts with Instructor privileges. The account will remain valid for as long as the faculty member is signed up with the university services. Faculty members registered in the Student Information System as instructors will become the Course Instructor of the respective LMS course(s).
4. In case Instructors require nominating other staff and/or students to be additional teaching assistants for their LMS course, they can request for the same through Service Desk, however the requesting faculty member must remain the primary course
5. In exceptional cases users who are not officially members of UOS, but require access to the LMS, may be provided an account based on a request submitted by a faculty or staff member, via the appropriate intervening division at the university. These accounts are considered temporary and are removed from LMS upon the completion of the purpose for which they were created. The access is only given to individuals who are working with UOS faculty/staff on officially recognized activities related to the LMS.
6. The Deans of Colleges and Departments’ Chairs are entitled to special access upon request in order to preview courses of their respective College'/ Department. The access will enable a read only view of the course information, course content and
announcement areas of the respective courses and restrict access to modify any part of the course.
7. Limited Instructional Technologies staff have system administrator\system support level privileges on the LMS. IT LMS admin may access the course with prior permission from instructor / College Dean.
Exam verification
1. Any student found to have used any kind of identification fraud in an online course where they are not the one doing the required work. UoS will take disciplinary actions as required.
2. The LMS system will required a secondary identification for each student at the registration level to verify proof of identity using available techniques.
Course Enrollment
1. Each semester, courses in LMS will be generated based on the course schedules provided by the Student Information System.
2. Any change in course enrollments reflected by data from the Student Information System would take effect on LMS during the update process.
Written Assignment Requirements
1. Written work includes formal research papers, business writing, technical writing, and journal entries.
2. All written work shall follow the guidelines for academic honesty, copyright, and intellectual property policies.
3. Files of authorized type may be submitted using the LMS Assignment tool however it is recommended that text-based papers be submitted in a suitable format to allow for feedback and plagiarism detection.
4. A receipt will be delivered to the student upon submission
5. If an issue occurs during submission, the student must contact their instructor
immediately, who may require the assignment to be submitted in an alternate format or contact ITC for technical support.
6. LMS Assignments provide access to Originality Reporting software that compares submitted assignments to stored records of journals, web sites, and other student papers. Reports are generated which contain text matches to the software database.
Students are allowed to view the Originality reports upon submission of assignments if instructor enabled this.
Attendance and Participation
Student's attendance for online courses is required and should follow the university policy in attendance.
Evaluations and Assessment:
1. Online examinations may be conducted using LMS Test tool. Instructors must adhere to the examination procedure as outlined in the Online Exam policy and procedure
document.
2. Online proctoring tools should be available and integrated with LMS system and must be used by instructors when holding an online exam
3. The LMS must provide separated or same exam settings for online and on-campus exams according to the exam setup
4. Midterm and final grades columns in grade center should be hidden during the exam 5. Course coordinators or chairs can request to create separate course site for midterm
and final exams and can request to eliminate access from other instructors after approval of Department chair or College Dean for exam security.
6. Instructor or course coordinator may request adding other assistance to grade exams under his responsibility
Course Backups
Instructors are strongly recommended to regularly take backups of their LMS courses during
accordance with Blackboard Cloud procedures. The online grade center tool in LMS must be backed up separately from the rest of the course.
Course Availability & Retention Policy
Courses will be potentially available to students for five years after the course has ended.
Post the course retention period has elapsed, all course sites can be saved in physical location.
Course past archives can be provided only upon request by the Instructor.
Course content can be copied from other previous courses that were managed by faculty who resigned based on the request or approval from chair or Dean
Course Quota
Course quotas are set for each course and can be updated upon request. Each course is allotted 1 GB of space by default.
File Types and Size
Content Uploaded by faculty members, teaching assistants or students (for example, through the assignment submissions) should not contain any executables and/or scripts (eg. .exe, .pl, .asp, etc.). Each file should not exceed 100 MB in size.
Third-party Tools and Functionality Policy
LMS can be integrated with several vendors, applications and enterprise solutions through
“building blocks” or APIs. If a department or instructor would like to request an academic solution, LMS administrator will work on the integration possibilities.
